Guide for clients

This page is for you if an agency has sent you a link to a design review. It describes how to get to the designs and how to comment on them.

What you received and why

The agency has prepared a project for you — a set of designs for one website or application. Each individual design is a screen. You look through the screens and write your feedback straight onto the image: you click the spot you mean and write a comment. The agency then sees which point of the design your words are about.

This is a working tool, not a public gallery. There is nothing at the project's address for anyone who does not have the link and the project password.

How you get to the designs

There are three steps and all of them take seconds.

1. The link

The agency sent you a link to the review page. It looks roughly like this:

https://agency.example.com/review/your-company

The address may be on the agency's subdomain or on its own domain — both work the same way. Keep the link; there is nowhere else to find it again.

2. The project password

The first page asks for the project password. You received it together with the link. The password belongs to one project, not to you — everyone on your side who is meant to look at the designs uses the same password.

If the password does not match, the page says so and you can try again. The number of attempts per minute is limited, so after a few quick tries, wait a moment.

3. Your name

Then you type your name. It is only there so the agency knows who the feedback is from — you have no account and you are creating nothing. No registration, no e-mail address, no password of your own.

What is stored about you

Your name is kept for this visit and attached to every comment and approval you write. It is shown next to them and is visible to the agency and to everyone else with access to this project. You enter nothing else about yourself.

Your browser also keeps an anonymous identifier (a cookie) for one year, so the page recognises your comments when you come back. Nothing about you is in it — not even your name.

The review page header shows the name you are writing under ("Commenting as …") and, next to it, a Change name link. The new name appears on everything you write from now on. Earlier comments keep the name they were written under, and stay yours.

The review page

After those three steps the project's first screen opens. The design is in the middle, the comment list is on the right, the controls are along the top.

Switching screens

Along the top is a row of tabs — one for each screen in the project. A tab may carry:

Mark	Meaning
A number	How many threads on the screen's latest version are still unresolved
✓	The screen's latest version has been approved

You can also switch screens with the ← and → keys.

Image size

Above the design is a group of size controls:

• Fit (tooltip "Fit width") — the design is scaled down so the whole width fits the window. This is the starting state.
• − and + — smaller and larger in steps (25, 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, 300 and 400 %).
• The readout between them shows what percentage of the design's actual size you are looking at. Clicking it returns to 100 %.

You can also zoom with Ctrl + the scroll wheel, with a double click on the image, or with the +, − and 0 keys (zero goes back to fitting the width). Your chosen size stays with you when you move to another screen.

The version switcher

If the agency has uploaded several versions of the same screen, the top bar carries a switcher: Version: v1 v2 v3 (latest). What opens is always the design from the latest version. You can look at older versions but cannot write anything on them — see "Older versions are read-only" below.

Desktop and mobile

The agency may upload a design for more than one view of the same version — a desktop one and a mobile one. The top bar then carries a second switcher next to the version switcher: View: Desktop Mobile. A version with only one view shows no switcher. What opens is the desktop view; a version with only a mobile design opens straight on mobile.

• Each view has its own comments. A pin points at a spot in the picture you are looking at, so a comment written on mobile belongs to the mobile design and does not show on desktop. Markers are numbered per view, so both start at one.
• The list points you at the other view. When the other view has open threads, a link under the comment list's heading says so, for example "The Mobile view has 2 open comments." Clicking it switches views.
• The tab number and the count by the approval add both views up. You approve a version as a whole, with all its views, so "Unresolved comments" by the approval button counts the other view's threads too.
• A mobile design in a narrow column. When fitting the width, a mobile design is not stretched across the window; it is shown at about phone width (390 points), centred. You can zoom it like any other design.
• Switching versions keeps you on your view when that version has it. When it does not, the version opens on desktop.

The four tools

Above the design is a tool switcher. It decides what a click or a drag on the image does.

Tool	Key	What it does
Pan	V	Drag to move a zoomed image around
Comment	C	Click to place a pin with a comment
Draw	D	Drag to draw a freehand line and comment on it
Highlight	H	Drag to shade a rectangular area and comment on it

Next to them is a colour swatch. There are five colours and the keys 1 to 5 pick them. The choice applies to the next drawing or highlight; drawings already saved keep the colour they were made in. While Pan or Comment is active, the swatch is dimmed, because nothing is being drawn.

Only on the latest version

Comment, Draw, Highlight and the colour choice appear only on the latest version of a screen. On an older version the only tool left is Pan.

Placing a pinned comment

1. Switch to the Comment tool.
2. Click or tap the place in the design you mean.
3. A field opens for your text. Enter sends the comment, Shift+Enter starts a new line, Esc or Cancel closes it.

A comment can be up to 5,000 characters long. Text you have started but not sent is kept locally, so it does not vanish if you close the page and come back.

Drawing and highlighting work the same way, except that you first drag to mark what you mean. The pin then anchors itself to the bottom edge of the drawing. The open field carries a Discard drawing link — it removes the drawing but keeps what you typed and leaves the pin where the drawing was anchored (on its bottom edge).

What the numbered marker means

Where you clicked, a marker stays behind — a small disc with a number. The numbers follow the order in which threads were started on that version, oldest first. Clicking a marker opens a bubble with the whole thread. A resolved thread has a grey marker.

On the right is the list of all comments. Clicking a row opens the matching marker on the image.

Replies

The open bubble carries a Write a reply… field. Anyone who got into the project can reply — you, your colleagues, and the agency.

Threads are one level deep. A reply cannot be replied to; every reply hangs under one first comment. A new comment always asks for a new pin.

Resolving and reopening

The bubble and the list on the right both carry a tick button. It marks a thread as resolved, and the same click opens it again.

You may only mark a thread you started yourself. The agency may mark any of them. It works on the latest version only.

Fifteen minutes to edit or delete

For fifteen minutes after sending, you can still edit or delete your own comment or reply — a pencil and a bin appear next to it in the bubble. Once the time is up, the pencil and the bin vanish by themselves within a few seconds; you do not need to reload the page.

Where those fifteen minutes come from

Fifteen minutes is the default, not a fixed rule. Some Pinfolio installations set it differently, so the window you get may be a different length.

Two further limits:

• Editing and deleting work on the latest version only.
• You cannot delete a thread somebody has already replied to — it would take other people's words with it. The agency can delete it.

Moving your pin

You can drag the pin of your own thread to another place in the design. The fifteen-minute window does not apply here — you can move it as long as the version is the latest one.

A pin that belongs to a drawing or a highlight cannot be moved. It would end up pointing at something other than what was drawn.

Approving a version

Below the comment list is an Approve version v{n} button — {n} is the number of the latest version, for example Approve version v3. Approving tells the agency that the design can be built on.

• An approval belongs to one version. When the agency uploads a new version, that new one is unapproved again.
• An approval covers every view of the version — desktop and mobile at once. That is why the count of unresolved comments includes threads from every view.
• You can approve with feedback still open, but the page asks first: "Unresolved comments left: {n}. Approve anyway?" When nothing is open, the version is approved at once.
• Once approved, the page shows who approved it and when. Withdraw approval is visible only to the person who gave it — in the same browser they approved from — and to the agency. Withdrawing asks for confirmation too.
• If somebody else approved the screen before you, your click changes nothing and the name on the approval is not overwritten.
• Only the latest version can be approved.

Older versions are read-only

The version switcher takes you to an older version, but nothing can be written there: no new comment, no reply, no edit, no resolving, no approval. A band at the top says so, and the only tool left is Pan.

The comments that are on an older version can be read.

A link to a single pin

The bubble carries a link icon — Copy link. It copies an address that points straight at that thread. If you send it to somebody and they open it (they still need the project password), the page opens the thread for them and scrolls to it. A link to a thread on the mobile view carries that view (it ends in ?variant=mobile#pin-…), so it opens on mobile.

If the thread is not on the screen's latest version any more, or not in the view you have open, the link still finds it:

• if the agency carried the thread over to a new version, its copy on the latest version opens — in the view the thread is on;
• otherwise the page switches to the older version and the view that hold the thread and opens it there — for an older version with the band saying you are viewing an older version.

The page language

In the top right corner is a CS | EN switcher. Your choice stays for the whole visit. The page's own text switches; comments stay in whatever language each person wrote them in.

New comments appear by themselves

The page asks the server for new comments, replies and the approval state about every 30 seconds by itself. You do not have to reload it. It only asks while the browser tab is visible, and it never interrupts you in the middle of typing, sending or dragging a pin.

Thirty seconds is the default interval. On some Pinfolio installations it is different, or new comments do not load by themselves at all — then reload the page.

What you cannot do

So that the boundaries are clear:

• You have no account and cannot create one. There is nothing to log in to.
• You cannot reach another project of the same agency — a password covers one project.
• You cannot upload images or create screens and versions.
• You cannot delete or edit other people's comments.
• You cannot resolve a thread you did not start.
• You cannot write on older versions.
• You cannot edit your comment once the editing window has passed.
• You cannot recover the project password yourself.

Feedback is not private

Everyone who gets into the project sees every comment and every author name — yours and other people's. The Mine only and Unresolved only switches on the right are a view of the list, not a permission: they hide nothing from anyone else. If you need to tell the agency something for their eyes only, tell them outside this page.

Frequently asked questions

I lost the project password

The page cannot send the password to you. Write to the agency — they can see it in their administration and will send it again. If they have set a new one in the meantime, the old one has stopped working.

The page asks for my name or the password again

Either the visit expired (browser closed, a long pause, a different device, a different browser), or the agency changed the project password — which signs out every existing visit. Enter the password and your name again (the name field starts empty).

In the same browser your earlier comments stay yours whatever name you type — the page recognises them by the stored identifier. In another browser, on another device, in a private window or after clearing cookies they no longer count as yours, and the pencil, the bin and pin dragging are not offered on them. The agency can still act on them.

My comment has disappeared from the latest version

When the agency uploads a new version of a screen, they can tick a box to carry open feedback over to it. Only unresolved threads are carried over; the ones already marked resolved stay behind on the previous version. And if the agency left the box unticked, the new version starts with no comments at all.

Nothing is lost: switch to the older version with the version switcher and the comment is there, replies included.

A thread carried onto a new version also stays on the older one, as a record of what was said about it. When you mark it resolved on the new version, it is resolved there too.

I can see somebody else's comment — is that intended?

Yes, that is how it is built. A project is a shared workspace: whoever has the link and the project password sees every comment and every author name, and can reply to them. It is not a private inbox for one person.

Where to next

• Documentation home
• What Pinfolio is — what Pinfolio is for and what its terms mean.